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June 10, 2015
At Home with Friends

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Halibut with Homemade Tomato Sauce

When halibut is fresh and wild, it is totally delectable, providing you don’t overcook it. It takes much less time than you think and pairs well with many different sauces. For this dinner, I made a quick tomato sauce using canned diced organic tomatoes (from Costco), capers and diced black Kalmata olives. Other than the […]

May 27, 2015
At Home with Friends

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Multicolored Salad

Even people who don’t like salad will be drawn to the kaleidoscope of colors and flavors in this dish. I use an organic herb salad mix I find at Trader Joe’s. Next time you reach for that boring bag of lettuce, try this instead. It includes: organic baby lettuce, red and green romaine, red and […]

May 15, 2015
At Home with Friends

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Italian Sausages & Peppers

Italian Sausages and Peppers is a typical family style dish served in Italian homes at large family lunch. It seemed perfect for this meal. I think of an Italian grandmother standing over the stove, putting this together. I didn’t have an Italian grandmother. But I’d like to imagine, if I did, this is what her […]

July 21, 2014
At Home with Friends

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Prosciutto & Mango

During a vacation in Italy, a friend I was traveling with ordered prosciutto and melon as an appetizer. I thought of all the delicious choices on the menu, it was the most boring. And then I tasted it. Wow! The contrast between the tissue paper thin, perfectly cured, salty prosciutto and the juicy, ripe, sweet […]

July 21, 2014
At Home with Friends

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Balsamic Vinegar

WHAT’S THE STORY ON BALSAMIC VINEGAR? Many years ago, I heard people bragging about how they spent hundreds of dollars on balsamic vinegar. I thought they were nuts. But one day I happened to be in a cooking store when they were having a balsamic vinegar tasting. For the first time, I experienced what everyone […]